ftp login failure

[Matthew Ghofrani]

In a HPUX 11.11, a user can't ftp to the system. Her name is not listed in /etc/ftpd/ftpusers and she has no .netrc in her home directory, and meanwhile sftp does work for her. Other users don't have this problem.

Any ideas on how this could be?

[Orhan Biyiklioglu]

what about the ftphosts file? maybe she or her host is denyed in there.

[Patrick Wallek]

What's the error? Does she get the FTP login prompt?

More information is needed!

[Mel Burslan]

check her default shell and make sure it is included in the /etc/shells files.

I have seen this with occasional people who use csh in our predominantly ksh environment and csh was missing from /etc/shells.

HTH

[Matthew Ghofrani]

There is no ftphosts except in the example directory and her shell is in /etc/shells, also here is the error output:

530 User test access denied...
Login failed.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> bye
221 Goodbye.

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Sorry the real error is bellow, on the previous email, I had included her in ftpusers to see what would happen, Here is the log:

331 Password required for test.
Password:
530 Login incorrect.
Login failed.

[Patrick Wallek]

Is the account enabled? If this is a trusted system and the users account is disabled you can see messages like this. FTP will not tell you the account is disabled, it will just deny login.

[Mel Burslan]

I must re-iterate what I have suggested above as your situation seems to be very similar to mine...

also, while she is trying to login, watch the syslog using

tail -f /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

command. what errors do you see ? Also, if she is able to login using telnet or ssh, is she able to come in using one of those interactive sessions ? What is her default shell ?

[Matthew Ghofrani]

It is enabled since sftp works fine and she can direct sign

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Her shell is "/usr/bin/sh" and yes I have tailed the syslog and nothing shows..
Any other ideas?

I guess I could turn on ftp syslog loging to be more verbose if needed!

[john kingsley]

Has the user's password expired? If it has, ftp won't allow them to login and won't allow them to change it. It just kicks them off the system.

[Mel Burslan]

is /usr/bin/sh in the /etc/shells file ?

is your inetd running with -l option to enable logging ? Are you operating in a trusted computing environment or untrusted ?

If your inetd is running without a "-l" option according to "ps -ef | grep inetd" command output, I'd suggest you to kill and restart inetd using:

inetd -k ; inetd -l

then wantch the syslog when she logs in for error messages.

[Matthew Ghofrani]

I used "inetd -l" and nothing got logged in.
I use regular password file.

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Password is not expired since sftp gets her in with no problem!

[john kingsley]

What about /var/inetd.sec?

Is it possible that her system or network has been blocked?

[Zigor Buruaga]

Hi,

Be sure that your ftp entry in /etc/inetd.conf has also the logging enabled, something like:

ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/lbin/ftpd ftpd -l

and then force inetd to reread the config file by running "inetd -c".
In addition, take a look at this link, I'm not sure if it's applicable here, but well, I can't resist to add it:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=852622

Regards,
Zigor

[Tor-Arne Nostdal]

Could it be as simple as the fact that the username is "test"

/2r-arne

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Mystery solved;

I had done everything I knew under the sky but deactivating & then activating the user actually solved the problem.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Matthew from Boston

[Matthew Ghofrani]

Thank you all